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These video games with a big graphic “downgrade” at their release

Maybe you heard the word downgrade before. This is the term that many use when the final game that we are sold is visually much less attractive than in trailers that the studio has shown us in the past. This graphic depreciation that some games undergo often creates frustration among players, feeling aggrieved to receive a lower quality graphic product than promised by video game companies.

We must also differentiate between a downgrade visual and an artistic choice. Some video game trailers are presented to the general public two, three or even four years before the release of a game. So there may be some artistic changes that are made so that the game looks slightly different, but not necessarily less beautiful. For example the last Spider-Man by the Insomniac studio. Can we really say that the game has undergone a downgrade because the suit of the spider man is a little less reflective or because there are a little less puddles in the environment?

In short, sometimes it’s difficult to say if a game has suffered a real downgrade graphic or if it’s just a different artistic choice. But here are 6 video games that are undeniably much less beautiful visually, in comparison with what the developers promised us through their trailers…

WATCH DOGS

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Revealed to the world during the Ubisoft conference of E3 2012, the 10-minute trailer shows us the hero of the game, Aiden Pierce, during a mission where we can see him interacting with his environment. The game is then confirmed for PC, Xbox 360 and PS3 and it is only in 2013 that Ubisoft confirms that the game will also be released on PS4, Xbox One and Wii U. The game will finally be released in May 2014.

What is striking in this trailer is how lively and realistic the city looks. Dust particles in the street, beams of sunlight passing through trees, how light reacts on objects with their shadows, fog and smoke effects, the number of NPCs in the city, the monster explosion at the end of the trailer… In short all of the things that we do not find or little on the new generation consoles (PS4 and Xbox One), even less on the less powerful consoles like the Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii U. Even the PC version, with a configuration at most, is visually very different from this trailer.

ALIENS : COLONIAL MARINE

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As for’Aliens : Colonial Marine, released in early February 2013, the problem is not limited to graphics unfortunately… Filled with bugs, faulty artificial intelligence and visually light years from the demo presented at E3 2011. So much so that 2 players sued Gearbox Software and Sega for false representation, claiming that the final game is far from the game shown in the 2011 demo.

The lighting, the atmospheric effects as well as the blood that we could find everywhere in the demo of 2011 really gave an atmosphere similar to what we could find in the universe of films. Alien. Simply compare the final version of the game with the demo when the player crosses the bridge, we immediately see the problem. Interactive light disappeared in the final version, as well as some blood effects and much less impressive explosions… Even the PC version, less worse than the Xbox 360 and PS3 version, does not come close to the demo.

KILLZONE 2

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I can hear you immediately saying to me: “Hey, this is clearly a 100% CG trailer, impossible that it was captured on a Playstation 3, so it’s not downgrade ! ” Totally agree. The problem is that when this video was presented to the public during the famous Playstation E3 2005 presentation, no one had yet played a Playstation 3 game. And when the journalists asked Jack Tretton, a senior official of SCEA, if it was indeed real gameplay, he replied yes! It took several days before Sony clarified that it was not gameplay in real time, but a video seeking to demonstrate the graphic capacity of the Playstation 3…

And several players have wrongly accused the studio Guerrilla Games. The latter then clarified that they always said that it was a pre-rendered video and that all this confusion came from the marketing team of Sony. However, they do not hide the fact that all this controversy motivated them to give their maximum in order to make the final version of Killzone 2 (2009) as beautiful as possible. Dutch studio now recognized for popular franchise Horizon and for its excellent Decima game engine (Horizon, Until Dawn, Death Stranding)

MOTORSTORM

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Same problem as Killzone 2… Presented at the 2005 E3 Playstation conference, we are shown a superb video of the brand new game MotorStorm, without specifying that it is indeed a pre-rendered video and not the game rolling on a Playstation 3. The quality of the smoke effects, the terrain that instantly deforms when vehicles pass, the details in 3D modeling … In short, it was really too good to be true. But must admit, the final version of the game released in 2006 is visually very beautiful, but far from what we were shown in 2005.

RAINBOW SIX

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You remember this Ubisoft presentation for the game Rainbow Six : Siege at E3 2014? This video where everyone is too polite and professional? It’s not the only thing wrong. If you played Rainbow Six : Siege since the release of the game in 2015, you quickly realize that the visual quality is far from that of the presentation… The effects of smoke and particles that make everything more dramatic, the animation of the characters more fluid, much more realistic and dynamic lighting. But above all what is striking in this video is the hostage. Much more detailed and animated than in the final version of the game, reacts when it sees the drone, etc. In the final version of the game, the hostage is very different, almost bland… Oddly, even the number of ammunition does not always seem to correspond to what is happening in the video… Maybe the interface was added in post -production?

ANTHEM

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The game Anthem was not easy… If the critics appreciated certain ideas, several denounced a game which does not seem to have been finished, but especially very repetitive. Several players were also disappointed with the visual quality of the game, far from what we could see through the trailers unveiled by EA and Bioware before its release in 2019.

Comparing the presentation of the game to E3 2017 at the Xbox conference with the PC version (maximum configuration) when the game is launched in February 2019, we can quickly see the difference. Less NPC in the environment, less impressive lighting, less atmospheric effects, slightly less fluid animation, etc. Admittedly, the game remains beautiful in itself, but it is far from what we could see when it was unveiled at the 2017 Xbox conference, supposedly rolling on an Xbox One X…

MENTION HONORABLE :

  • Crackdown 3 : We were promised the “power of the Cloud” paired with that of the Xbox One in order to give us physics and destruction like never seen before in a game. Finally they forgot the “power of the Cloud” and the destruction of the environments is not what we expected…
  • The Witcher 3 : The 2013 VGX trailer really set the bar high. Too high… The developers of the Polish studio CD Projekt Red had to change the rendering method in order to adapt to new generation consoles (PS4 and Xbox One) but above all to adapt to the immense open world that the game has become. its release in 2015. In the end, the game is visually very beautiful, despite the marked difference with the trailer of 2013.
  • The Division : Like many Ubisoft games, The Division received a lot of criticism when it was released in 2016. Although the game looks pretty good in the end, many still see a difference with the trailers presented during the 3 years preceding the launch of the game. Like the Dynamic Shaders which reacted to the weather, the details in New York City or the less impressive dynamic light…
  • Mass Effect Andromeda : It’s not just the animation of the faces that was criticized when the game was released in 2017; some players also think that the final version as a whole has also gotten a bit old. Clearly the artistic direction has changed if we compare with the trailers, but the visual of the game as a whole remains pretty good.

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